Video 5:55
Ballet Mentors

Internationally successful ballet dancer Paul Knobloch has been back in his home town teaching workshops to young Canberra dancers - and spending time with his own mentor.

Transcript

CHRIS KIMBALL, PRESENTER: Canberra's also seen the blossoming of the internationally successful ballet dancer Paul Knobloch.

After years performing with the Australian Ballet he's now joined a top European company and dancers on the world's great stages.

But he's not gotten his roots at Jackie Hallahan's dance school in Belconnen. And he's been back in Canberra teaching workshops for young dancers.

PAUL KNOBLOCH, BEJART BALLET: Jackie has been an incredible mentor to me throughout my whole career since seeing something in me at a young age to then nurturing that and encouraging that, supporting me in every endeavour that I take.

JACKIE HALLAHAN, BALLET TEACHER: Paul came to me when he was 12 years old and my studios were in Belconnen then.

And he did a jazz class and I was fortunate enough to teach him that day and gradually I watched his development and I thought, wow, there's somebody special here.

PAUL KNOBLOCH: Since then I think Jackie saw an innate sense of talent in me that she kind of nurtured and pushed me and encouraged me to take up classical ballet.

Since then I haven't looked back.

JACKIE HALLAHAN: He had an incredible focus and he was alive, exciting to watch and just a theatrical presence, a real charisma, but very natural and seemed to have nerves of steel.

Like all young men that come in to dance, when they're boys and they come in there surrounded by girls, often in pink, it's quite threatening really.

But he didn't seem to worry about that.

PAUL KNOBLOCH: I think at first it was quite hard.

When you're in high school and a boy wearing tights doing ballet, it's not considered the norm.

I think many boys get teased for doing something that is a bit more artistic or theatrical in that sense.

But whilst I was at the Canberra Dance Development Centre I was entered into a big scholarship in Sydney and I was fortunate to win it.

The GIO Australian Ballet Scholarship

JACKIE HALLAHAN: Probably the most definitive moment where he came up to everything that I had seen in him in those first initial years was when he won the GIO scholarship in Sydney.

My dad came with me and I said to dad, "Wait till you see Paul dance."

Ands and he came out and he was about number 52 or something and he just tore up the place. It was amazing.

And my dad looked at me and went, wow.

It was so exciting.

PAUL KNOBLOCH: And the prize was $10,000 and since then the people at school kind of became my friend and, you know, befriended me in a sense.

So, yeah, towards the end it was more accepted and people respected me for what I did and knew hey this boy has a career he is going to carve out of this field.

I think it became easier and people understood.

I've been with the Bejart Ballet in Lausanne now for a year now in Switzerland.

I moved from the Australian Ballet where I was for eight years.

The centre of the international dance world is definitely over there as much as Australia is developing in the arts and we're getting a lot more, it's still very sport orientated.

But, yeah, I think the experience to travel the world and to dance on such amazing stages is something that inspires me and something that will help me develop in order to bring back to Australia what I've learnt.

I was so fortunate I think it's any dancer's dream to perform on the Paris Opera Garnier stage. I performed one of Maurice Bejart's famous works; it was a Webern Opus Cinq.

And yeah an incredible highlight in my career, something that I, you know, previously thought wouldn't have been possible.

There was lot of nerves, of course, but pure excitement and joy.

Once out on the stage I think the nerves just go away and you melt into what you're doing, the movement is freedom and, yeah, just the sheer enjoyment of what I was doing and being able to give something to an audience and have a fantastic response in return was something that I will treasure forever I think.

Spread out on the bar so you've each got a bit of room.

I've been doing a series of workshops in collaboration with Jackie Hallahan and the Canberra Dance Development Centre and also the wider community in Canberra just offering classical workshops and master classes and just giving back a little bit of experience I've had overseas during my time with Bejart ballet.

I really enjoy doing that and there's a great talent in Canberra, it's really flourishing.

And up to come back.

Good, excellent, good.

JACKIE HALLAHAN: There's a statement about standing on the shoulders of giants, now I am not a giant.

But I think that when you teach you nurture someone and then later they nurture you in a similar way.

PAUL KNOBLOCH: I think as a dancer I want to dance for as long as you can but I guess like any athlete or artist your body only lasts as long as it can.

So there are little signs and little niggles going on but I definitely have that same passion that I had when I was 12 years old, if not even more so.